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Originally Posted by snakegetters
No, you don't. There are only three choices of antivenom for North American snakes in hospitals today.
1. Wyeth coral snake antivenom. It's not too hard to tell a coral snake from a rattlesnake.
2. CroFab. This is a polyvalent that is supposed to be effective against all of the North American vipers. Clean product with minimal side effects, but bloody expensive and you tend to need a lot more vials.
3. Wyeth polyvalent. Same as above, only cheaper and with more side effects. A bit outdated but there are still current stocks in place.
There is generally going to be a hospital wide policy about which antivenom gets used or stocked, so the patient is not going to have any choice of antivenoms. If it's a viper bite, you're going to get either CroFab or Wyeth. Which one is likely to depend on which drug companies and distributors the hospital is dealing with and/or what historical stocks they still have around.
No, you don't need species identification in North America to treat venomous snake bite, except to differentiate between a coral snake and everything else.
It's nice to know in advance whether the patient was bitten by one of the more neurotoxic vipers (Mojave green, Georgia canebrake) so the docs can have the ventilators ready, but the obvious clue of the early signs of neuromuscular paralysis should make it a pretty clear picture.
Doctors tend to deal with the symptoms of snakebite as they occur; they really aren't helped all that much by knowing what the species was. Certainly not in terms of antivenom administration.
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Very well stated but one other side fact. Many keepers of the more exotic species also keep a stock of anti venom also which is more species specific as most local hospitals don't have such AV's in stock and most zoo's don't have the same species you might keep. I have found out the best data bank and anti venom bank is in south Florida. Most local poision control folks may be clueless about what you may need for a specific species you keep. this is why it is very inportant to have all information in a easy to read folder or notebook that you can take with you in the event of a bite.
As for North American Species the fact that if you can identify the snake it will help greatly in your recovery. But the average homeowner who knows nothing about snakes will just relay the fact they got bitten by a rattlesnake which really doesn't narrow down species specifics of which species bit them. this is why we must educate the public about what lives in their area, plus it is just good public relations to do so anyway.